Vegetable vendor designs clock, gifts it to Ram Mandir trust

PTI, Dec 31, 2023, 6:29 PM IST

Lucknow: A vegetable vendor here has has gifted a clock, which he has designed to denote the time in eight countries at the same time, to the Ram mandir trust.

Anil Kumar Sahu (52) said that recently he gifted a clock measuring 75 cm in diameter to Champat Rai, the general secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, ahead of the consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

”I started working on this clock (75 cm) in October during the Navratras, and recently gifted one such clock to Champat Rai jee,” he said.

Earlier, he had gifted such clocks to the Khatu Shyam temple in Lucknow and Kotwa Dham and Kunteshwar Mahadev in Barabanki. The clock designed by Sahu has become the centre of attraction at the vegetable market near the Hahnemann crossing.

The clock denotes the time of India, Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Tokyo (Japan), Moscow (Russia), Beijing (China), Singapore, Mexico City (Mexico), Washington DC and New York (USA).

Sahu said that he first made the clock in 2018, and it was given the ‘certificate of registration of design’ by the Patent Office, Government of India. It displayed the times of India, China, Dubai, Moscow and Tokyo.

Sahu plans to design in the future clocks which can denote timings of 25 countries.

Sahu said he got the inspiration for this idea during a discussion about the time zone with his landlord from Oman, and added that he wants to gift one such clock to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Himanshu Varma, a resident of Vastu Khand in Gomtinagar, who was buying garlic from Sahu, was curiously looking at the novel clock.

He said, ”I have seen different clocks put up at the reception counters of various hotels in Lucknow, showing the current time of different prominent cities of the world. However, this is the first time that I have seen a clock, which is showing the time of different places across the world at the same time.”

Sahu also said that he plans to commercially manufacture such clocks, but his hands are tied due to paucity of funds. He also said that on an average, the cost of making the 75-centimetre-long diameter clock is around Rs 3,000; and it takes around one-and-half hour to make it.